


Sectumsempra

by Septentrio



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:34:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24339706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Septentrio/pseuds/Septentrio
Summary: George is Fred, but Fred never lost an ear. So who does George see in the mirror?
Relationships: Angelina Johnson/George Weasley, Fred Weasley & George Weasley
Kudos: 8





	Sectumsempra

He is always aware of it. He knows time is supposed to ease the pain, but it doesn’t. George is aware of Fred’s absence at every moment of every day. When he wakes up, when he eats, when he cries. A cripple is aware of his missing leg, so how could George forget his brother is dead?

Angelina did not want to name their son Fred: she feared the sight of him would remind George of his loss. She does not know that George sees Fred’s absence in the dim yellow of the sun, in a game of Exploding Snap, in his missing ear. Fred takes as much space dead than he did alive. That is, a lot.

This morning is no different. As he opens his eyes, George is panting, searching for air like a drowning man. He breathes deeply once, twice and manages to get up. He stays in bed some mornings, the duvet weighing down on him like a headstone. On days like those, Angelina kisses him on the forehead before she goes and wakes Freddie up. Most times, his son’s warm brown eyes give him the strength to get up. When they don’t, when George lies in bed until evening comes, those are the bad days. When they happen, Angelina does not say a word as she settles in bed next to him at the end of the day, but she never fails to take his hand and George falls gently asleep, as one dies after a long agony.

When he lies next to his wife’s warm body, George often remembers the burning jealousy during their sixth year, when Fred invited her to the Yule Ball. “We look the same! Why didn’t you pick me?”, he wanted to shout. He remembers the conversation he heard in a corridor: _“Is George the one dating that Chaser?” “No, that’s Fred.”_ George has always hated anything that could differentiate the twins ─ but Angelina, it was too much, she could not be shared, no, she was supposed to be his, and his only.

George does not want to think about that, because today is a good day: he has breakfast with his wife and son then meets Ron at the store. He smiles at the customers, shares a joke with the deliveryman; he doesn’t even start when Fred doesn’t take over and only silence laughs at him. When he gets home, George is in a good mood. He thinks of having a party for his birthday, which they have only done once since the end of the war: Molly cried all day and George didn’t leave his bed for the following three weeks.

He watches Freddie fly in the garden until his wife comes home. They have diner while Angelina tells them how Mrs Chubs sat on a garden gnome again on the training pitch, which makes Freddie burst out laughing and George breathes almost normally. Today is a good day. Freddie is laughing so hard that he gets pudding on his father’s ugly shirt – Percy’s Christmas gift. George thinks his son is very promising.

In the bathroom, George takes off his shirt and cleans it in the sink – Angelina and he are both terrible at household charms. He has a smile on his face when he looks up. In the mirror, Fred is smiling as well. George knows they are both thinking of the time Percy gave Fred this horrible robe that George promptly set on fire the next day. An accident, of course. The twins snigger. George is glancing at his brother one last time before leaving the bathroom when he sees it. The ear.

Fred is still looking at him in the mirror. But Fred has never lost an ear, therefore it is not Fred. It is George and his reflection, only George, not Fred, _not ever again_ , the ear screams. And George has never hated someone as much as he hates Snape, not even Bellatrix Lestrange. Snape, the Death Eater, the murderer, the man who, with a swish of his wand, cut the last link to his brother. When George looks at his reflection, he only sees the mangled ear, so distinctive. _“Which one is George? The dead one?” “No, he’s the one with the missing ear.”_

On the days George is unable to leave his bed, he hears Snape’s voice in his head and trembles when the warm blood slides down his neck. He knows that as long he hears Snape curse him, as long as he has only one ear, he will not be able to rise because Fred will not be there, not even in the bathroom's mirror.

George puts his hand on his ear and starts to scratch. He hears Angelina’s worried voice downstairs: she is always worried when he spends too long in the bathroom, since that time. The day he saw the ear and woke up to Freddie’s screams, lying on the cold tiles, blood pooling around him. He remembers the fear in his wife’s eyes when she made him swear to never do that again.

So today, facing the mirror, George takes a deep breath, puts his hands in his pockets and shouts to Angelina that everything is fine and he is coming down.

Yet he knows that tomorrow, when he looks in the mirror, he will scratch the hole of his ear again, trying to erase the symbol of their difference. But he cannot do so, because the words that Snape uttered cannot be erased, and Snape said _Sectumsempra._

 _Sectumsempra_ : to section, forever. So Fred is dead, forever.

**Author's Note:**

> Translation from French.


End file.
